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Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
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11 Jul, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Progress.

It is never inevitable, never irrevocable, never linear. It is always the result of difficult struggles that often involve heavy losses, and it always comes too late for so many people who would have deserved better.

But it is possible. This, here, is progress.
Yesterday was a good day at Charlottesville. And a good day for America.
A great thread on the history being made at Charlottesville yesterday.
“As of today, our town will be a little bit freer of the oppression of the Confederacy.”

Please read this thread by @sivavaid

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More from @tzimmer_history

Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
12 Jul
Here’s @ThePlumLineGS making a strong argument for why Democrats need to accept and set out to win the culture wars.

I’ll add some general thoughts on the idea that “kitchen table issues” can be separated from “culture war stuff,” to which too many Democrats still cling. 1/
The column outlines many of the reasons why ignoring the culture wars dimension is doomed to fail, as a matter of political strategy, in a situation in which the GOP, aided by the rightwing propaganda machine, is guaranteed to succeed in making it a salient issue. 2/
Aside from the question of political strategy, many in the Democratic camp seem to be basing their insistence to focus solely on socio-economic and financial matters on an analytical error: the idea that those “kitchen table issues” can be separated from the culture wars. 3/
Read 16 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
8 Jul
In this important column, @ezraklein emphasizes the need to question certain pervasive myths about American democracy. I would like to add some thoughts from a historical perspective – on a democracy that never has been yet: 1/
Even after four years of Trump, even after the insurrection of January 6, the animating principle for too many Democratic officials and liberals more broadly seems to be that “It cannot happen here.” 2/
American democracy can no longer afford this mix of willful ignorance and naive exceptionalism. It absolutely can happen here – and in many ways, an authoritarian victory would constitute a return to the historical norm. 3/
Read 53 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
5 Jul
“What the hell happened to her?” suggests that Haley and, by extension, Republicans in general have recently lost their way. Better to acknowledge that everything we’re seeing is well in line with longstanding anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies on the American Right.
That doesn’t mean that Republicans haven’t changed the way they talk, the way they present themselves. Many have. And these shifts on the level of rhetoric and style were, to some extent, inspired by Trump.
I reflected on Haley’s embrace of “brawler politics,” specifically, here:
Read 9 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
1 Jul
Appreciate the sentiment - but I’m really hoping that a) we’re not seriously still debating *if* #SCOTUS is an impediment to progress, and that b) we can all acknowledge that impeding progress towards multiracial democracy has been the historical norm for the Supreme Court.
Seriously, the widespread view among Liberals of #SCOTUS as an ally in the fight for a more democratic, fairer society stems entirely from a romanticized understanding of the Court’s history, misconstruing the Warren Court as the norm, when really that era was a massive outlier.
Whenever you bring up the fact that SCOTUS has, as a historical norm, been allied far more often with an anti-democratic, reactionary political project, someone will inevitably yell “But what about this decision? Or that decision?!”
Read 12 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
30 Jun
As far as I can tell, Hanania is widely regarded and presented by people on the center-right as a serious conservative intellectual. This, however, is not something a serious intellectual would write.
One has to be either remarkably uninformed or astonishingly disingenuous to equate the serious theoretical work and empirical analyses by leading legal scholars with the “modern representatives” of fascism and white nationalism.
If you think of Crenshaw / Bell and Stormfront / Bannon as equivalents, that really says a lot about you.
Read 4 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
29 Jun
This is a crucial piece by @ThePlumLineGS, outlining why the Select Committee should explore the “white rage” behind the January 6 insurrection.

I’d like to add: The white nationalist threat doesn’t emanate from the fringes of society – but from the Republican Party itself. 1/
We must not miss the forest for the trees: “White rage” is not just a fringe phenomenon in American politics, and the people who stormed the Capitol were not just a bunch of frustrated individuals from the fringes of society. 2/
They also weren’t simply seduced and overwhelmed by Trump’s #BigLie – I reflected on why it would be dangerously misleading to imagine the insurrectionists as victims of brilliant propaganda here: 3/
Read 40 tweets

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